An Architecture for the UniFrame Resource Discovery Service

Frequently, the software development for large-scale distributed systems requires combining components that adhere to different object models. One solution for the integration of distributed and heterogeneous software components is the UniFrame approach. It provides a comprehensive framework unifying existing and emerging distributed component models under a common meta-model that enables the discovery, interoperability, and collaboration of components via generative software techniques. This paper presents the architecture for the resource discovery aspect of this framework, called the UniFrame Resource Discovery Service (URDS). The proposed architecture addresses the following issues: a) dynamic discovery of heterogeneous components, and b) selection of components meeting the necessary requirements, including desired levels of QoS (Quality of Service). This paper also compares the URDS architecture with other Resource Discovery Protocols, outlining the gaps that URDS is trying to bridge.